Linking Attributes

I am checking out Zen Cart to see if it fits the needs of my company for an online restaurant ordering system. The big clinch will be whether or not I can link attributes. I've scanned a few other posts, and so far it seems this is not possible.

Here is what I want to do:

I need options for a "Small," "Large" or "Make it a Meal." if the customer clicks "Make it a Meal," we need a box to pop up with options for various sides (fries, vegetables, a drink, etc). To do that, I would think we'd have to link the attributes to the "Make it a Meal" option.

Now, that seems the most obvious approach, although perhaps there are other options? I am a database programmer, so I'm not afraid to get my hands a bit dirty, I'm just trying to figure out a plan of attack, or if I should abandon Zen Cart in favor of an alternative, such as Uber Cart.

Let me know what you guys think, and thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Sadly there is no STANDARD mechanism in ZC to "link" attributes - also called "dependant attributes" (ie: the selections offered in "B" depend upon what was initially chosen in "A").

I have seen some sites that have built their own attributes system for ZC - but these have been large commercial concerns, and they would have paid big bucks for this.

There are various attribute Add-ons for zencart... some may come close to what you want, but the feature you describe is not available as standard.

Thanks for the response. I took a quick browse through the various addons, and nothing stuck out at me. I'm also checking out a few other carts, including Magento and Uber Cart.

I liked Zen Cart as I'm a big PHP guy. I wouldn't mind trying to modify the code myself, although I'm more used to building my own solution from scratch, as opposed to modifying existing code. If you can point me in a good direction for where to start on the developer side, I might still give Zen a shot.

Either way, thanks again for the prompt reply.

The problem with coding conditional/dependent attributes is not all that great. What is a big challenge and I don't think has been cracked yet (and is unlikely to be now) is creating a system that is flexible enough to work out of the box for every possible permutation. Building attributes like this for one set of attributes and one set of conditions is perfectly possible with a bit of coding.

By the way Magento and UberCart are both php solutions too...